Wordorigins.org

Internet or internet

Dave Wilton, Wednesday, December 01, 2004

2004 was a year of many milestones, but one small one that passed unnoticed by most was that on 16 August Wired News ceased to capitalize the word internet. “Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the ‘I’ in internet,” wrote Tony Long, Wired News’ copy chief. On that date, Wired News also ceased to capitalize web and net, although it retains capitalization in World Wide Web.

The reason for capitalizing internet in the first place was that their are in actuality many different internets, or networks of computers linked by TCP/IP protocols (the IP stands for internet protocol). The largest of these, the global network with which we are all familiar, was capitalized to distinguish it from the smaller networks.

But the growth of the global internet brought about this change. It assimilated many of the smaller internets and those that survived as independent networks have been relegated to insignificance in the popular imagination. To most people, there is only one internet.

So Internet started losing its capital I. Like radio and television, it became just another communications medium and like those earlier technologies did not deserve a capital letter.

Some still capitalize it, of course. But the significance of the Wired News style change should not be underestimated. The practice of capitalizing the word is clearly on the way out.

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